Interview with M. Nakahira, Correspondent of the Japanese NewspaperOsaka Asahi[1]

Interviewed:June 3, 1920Published:Transmitted by telegraph June 6, 1920.

      First published in Russian (translated from the English) April 16, 1963 inIzvestiaNo. 91.

      Published in Japanese June 13, 1920, inOsaka AsahiNo. 13814, June 15, 1920, inTokyo AsahiNo. 12211, and in English in the magazineSoviet RussiaNo. 6 August 7, 1920.

      Printed from the text inOsaka Asahi.

      Translated from the Japanese.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      2nd English Printing,

      Progress Publishers,1971,

      Moscow,Volume 42,

      pages193-194a.Translated:Bernard IsaacsTranscription\Markup:D. WaltersPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2003).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Hedid not wait for our question, but started to speak of
the relations between Japan and Russia-to the effect that it is regrettable
that Japan does not seem willing to adopt an attitude of willingness to
meet the Soviet Government’s attitude of peace. The Soviet Government
stands for peace, and therefore it recognises the neutral zone

government.[2]

Hethen asked: “Is there a powerful landowning class in Japan? Does
the Japanese farmer own land freely? Do the Japanese people live on food
produced in their own country, or do they import much food from foreign
countries?” He asked many other questions, showing his deep interest in
living conditions in Japan.

Mr.Lenin next asked whether Japanese parents beat their children, and
said he had read of this in a book. “Tell me whether it is true or not,”
said he, “it is a very interesting subject.” I answered that there may be
exceptions, but as a rule parents do not beat their children in Japan. On
hearing my answer he expressed satisfaction and said that the policy of the
Soviet Government is to abolish this condition. After that we asked about
the revolution and subsequent developments.

Ingiving a résumé of Russian revolutionary history, he said:
“Before the revolution, the working and peasant classes of Russia were
extremely oppressed-in fact, their oppression was without parallel in past
history. As a result of this most severe oppression, the revolutionary
spirit of the poorer class gradually increased until it broke out in the
revolution. But the organising capacity of the lower strata of Russia is
comparatively weak and the degree of education lower than in any other
countries. In spite of all this they could not be suppressed. But now,
after two and a half years of experience, the Russian working and peasant
masses have obtained a great deal of political and social discipline. The
experience of this two and a half years can truly be compared with the
development of several centuries.”

Atthis point we asked why the Soviet Republic, in spite of its having
repudiated the national debts of czarism, had promised to give Esthonia
vast amounts of gold, when concluding peace. Smiling, Mr. Lenin said:
“Esthonia has shown her good will toward the Soviet Government and
therefore the Soviet Government has promised to pay her this
gold. Moreover,” he continued, “to deal with the propertied class is
really a very difficult matter. The propertied class cares for nothing but
its own material, interests. For instance, look at America. America
proposed a peace treaty with Soviet Russia. When we examined the treaty, we
could not accept. it because it was based on exploitation. So we rejected
it. Of course we do not consider ourselves incapable. The Allied nations,
rejecting recognition, attempt to interfere with Russia. There is reason to
think that if the intervention of the Allies should continue, it will be
profitable to the Boisheviki.

“Allin all, considering the prospects of Russia’s industries, the
situation is promising. If our electrical programme, is attained entire
industries can be electrified. The creative capacity of communism will be
increased and will exert the greatest influence in solving these problems,
and the development will be equal to that of several decades.”

[1]Thisinterview took place in Lenin’s private office in the Kremlin on
June 3, 1920. Writing from Moscow, Nakahira reported: “I interviewed
Mr. Lenin at his office in the Kremlin. Contrary to my expectation, the
decoration of the room is very simple. Mr. Lenin’s manner is very simple
and kind—as if he were greeting an old friend. In spite of the fact that
he holds the highest position, there is not the slightest trace of
condescension in his manner.”(Osaka AsahiNo. 13814 for June 13,
1920.) The next day, as Nakahra mentions in his later reminiscences, he
brought the text of his interview to Lenin, who read it carefully and made
several corrections.

Lenin’sinterview given to another Japanese
correspondent, K. Fussa, and printed lower down, took place on June 3 or
4. Possibly both correspondents were received by Lenin together. Fusse says
the interview lasted about twenty minutes. A. N. Vorneseasky, Chief of the
Eastern Department of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, was
present at the interview.

Fusse’sinterview with Lenin was reported on Jun, 26,
1920, in the Socialist-Revolutionary newspaper Volya pub!thed in
Vladivostok. The text of the interview given in this volume was first
published in Russian in 1924 in the collection of articlesLenin i
Vostok(Lenin and the East) and afterwards in the First Edition of
Lenin’s Collected Works (Vol. XX, Part II). It was not included in the 2nd,
3rd and 4th (Russian) editions of the Collected Works.

[2]Thisrefers to the Far-Eastern Republic set up in April 1920 on the
territory of the Trans-Baikal, Amur, Maritime and Kernchatka regions and
Northern Sakhalin. In form a bourgeois-democratic state, in essence it
pursued a Soviet policy in keeping with the interests of Soviet Russia,
which needed a prolonged respite on her Eastern Front and wanted to stave
off war with Japan. At the same time, the creation of a buffer state in the
Far East was made necessary by force of circumstances. As Lenin pointed
out, “circumstances made necessary the creation of a buffer state, the
Far-Eastern Republic. We are well aware of the unbelievable sufferings that
the Siberian peasants are enduring at the hands of the Japanese
imperialists and the atrocities the Japanese have committed in Siberia.”
(present edition, Volume 31, page 465).

Afterthe interventionists and whiteguards were driven
out of the Soviet Far East (except Northern Sakhalin), the People’s
Assembly of the Far-Eastern Republic voted for entry into the R.S.F.S.R. on
November 14, 1922.